Main menu

Tag: Villa Aurelia

Post navigation

Once it was the property of a count who furnished candles to the Vatican; once it was the strategic headquarters of Garibaldi’s last stand against the French; finally it was gifted to the American Academy in Rome by Clara Jessup Heyland in 1909. The Villa Aurelia is large, romantic, diverse, historic and a hop, skip and a jump from AAR. I was lucky enough to go on a garden tour with Alessandra Vinciguerra, Bass Superintendent of Gardens at the American […]

What is the opposite of newness, noise, speed, spectacle, entertainment, uniqueness, consumerism, shock? In Juhani Pallasmaa‘s world, it’s silence. He opened his presentation at the Villa Aurelia in Rome with the following quote: “Only in complete silence one starts to hear; only when language resigns, one starts to see.” Carthusian Monks, Grand Chartreuse. The name Juhani Pallasmaa meant nothing to me. I was in the minority. He was the speaker at an event jointly sponsored by the American Academy in […]